U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services continues to work on Fiscal Year 2009 H-1B petitions. The Vermont and California Service Centers were to have finished premium processing cases that were chosen in the lottery by the end of last week, but it is not yet clear whether that goal was reached. Filing receipts for non-premium processing cases are expected to be issued by June 2, 2008, though California Service Center receipts could be issued earlier.

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it is publishing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to increase the maximum amount of time a Trade-NAFTA (TN) professional worker from Canada or Mexico can remain in the United States before seeking readmission or obtaining an extension of stay. The proposal will extend the maximum period of admission for TN workers from one year to three years, the same term that USCIS currently may grant to H-1B specialty occupation workers.